title: The ethics of responding to a novel pandemic.
abstract: Recent epidemics and pandemics have highlighted a number of ethical concerns about the response to the increasing threat of emerging infectious diseases. Some of these ethical concerns are very fundamental. They include why a pandemic was declared, how much clinical information can be collected for public health without threatening patient confidentiality and how to ensure fairness in the distribution of resources. We discuss these issues and suggest approaches to resolve these dilemmas as we anticipate the next pandemic.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, National University Health System, Singapore. u0302066@gmail.com
authors.forename: Esther S T
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.forename: Paul Ananth
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Tambyah
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control; D003141:Communicable Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000941:ethics*; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D058873:Pandemics / Q000941:ethics*; D015980:Public Health Practice / Q000941:ethics*; D011790:Quarantine; D018571:Sentinel Surveillance; D012846:Singapore / Q000453:epidemiology